Discover the fascinating world of genetic genealogy! Written for the non-scientist, YGG is a source of unbiased news on the major genealogy DNA testing companies.
Written by CeCe Moore, an investigative genetic genealogist and television consultant.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Latest News from Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation and GeneTree

I received the following two emails from SMGF and GeneTree this evening and wanted to update my readers. For emphasis and easy scanning, I bolded the very important sentences regarding the continuation of the "freely accessible" website SMGF.org and the limited continuing availability of the Genetree.com website.

The Sorenson database is an extremely valuable tool for the genetic genealogy community, so I am happy to hear that that it will continue to be available to all researchers for the "foreseeable future". Let's hope it stays that way for a very long time! I'm also pleased to see that Tim Janzen's earlier report that new results would soon be published on SMGF.org has, indeed, come to fruition.

The GeneTree website will be available only through the end of the year, so please don't forget to download your results!

Dear Friends of SMGF,
SMGF is happy to announce the addition of new haplotypes and
genealogical records to the Sorenson mtDNA and Y-chromosome databases.
We invite you to search these updated databases to find new family
connections at http://www.smgf.org.
From the time it was founded in 1999 by molecular genealogy pioneer,
James Levoy Sorenson, the mission of SMGF has been to support an
important public purpose, namely the advancement of DNA-based genealogy
research. Thanks to the continued philanthropic support of Mr. Sorenson
and his family and the generosity of enthusiastic SMGF participants,
SMGF has built the most comprehensive database of linked DNA and
pedigree information in the world. Additionally, SMGF has contributed
greatly to the emerging field of genetic genealogy in other ways, such
as providing online DNA databases to the public and publishing numerous
scientific articles detailing new discoveries.
In order to remain a leader in this rapidly growing and dynamic field,
SMGF's resources and capabilities would have to be substantially
increased. Therefore, SMGF has decided that AncestryDNA is better
positioned to provide the benefit to the public that is central to
SMGF's mission. For this reason, SMGF's DNA-related assets were acquired
by AncestryDNA in March 2012 (link to press release).
SMGF is very excited to join AncestryDNA, and we are confident that the
pioneering work begun at SMGF will continue to grow and have an even
greater impact on the future scientific understanding and public
outreach of genetic genealogy.
As we redirect our efforts to the integration with AncestryDNA it will
be necessary to discontinue updates to the smgf.org website. Therefore,
this will be the last update made to the Sorenson online databases. This
update includes all of the Y-chromosome and mtDNA haplotypes that were
generated by SMGF over the course of its operations.
The smgf.org site will continue to operate for the foreseeable future
as a freely accessible tool for the genetic genealogy community, so we
invite users to continue searching for family connections on smgf.org.
We express our sincerest thanks to all those who participated in the
SMGF project.
Sincerely,The SMGF Team

and

Dear GeneTree Customer,You may have recently heard the exciting news that GeneTree has been acquired by AncestryDNA™ ( http://corporate.ancestry.com/press/press-releases/2012/05/ancestry.com-dna-launches/
). As we redirect our efforts to the integration with AncestryDNA it
will be necessary to discontinue the GeneTree.com website. However, as a
valued GeneTree customer, you will be able to access GeneTree.com
through the rest of this year, until January 1, 2013. Following this
date, access to your account will no longer be available through the
GeneTree site, so we recommend that you download your DNA results and
pedigree data while the site is still available.If you’d like to learn more about how to download and continue using your information and family tree outside of GeneTree, see click here To help answer some frequently asked questions, please visit our FAQs.
We greatly appreciate you being a part of GeneTree and hope that you
continue with your genetic genealogy and family history research. Sincerely, The GeneTree Team